國立彰化師範大學九十三學年度博士班招生考試試題
系所：地理學系
科目：地理學論著評讀
☆☆請在答案紙上作答☆☆
第 1 頁，共 3 頁
以下有五篇短文題目，請任選二題作答。每題 50 分。
一、In the book titled “Conservation: Carl Jordan had a discussion about primitive cultures.The
following are two very different views of primitive cultures in his discussion. Please give your
thoughts and comments on this debate.
The noble savage living in harmony with nature has long been a popular myth. This myth
holds that among “primitive people”, culture is closely bound to the environment—to the cycle of
sun and rain, to the fruiting and flowering of plants, and to the migration of animals and birds.
Indigenous people have been viewed as having an innately pure and spiritual relationship with
nature that ensures the sustainability of both the culture and nature.
How much truth this myth contains is a subject of considerable debate. An alternative view
has been that indigenous tribes are stupid, indolent people who waste resources and destroy nature.
Their worship of pantheistic gods instead of Jesus Christ has been taken as particularly strong
evidence of their backwardness and moral turpitude.
二、Read the following paragraphs and give your comments.
Tectonic landforms
Deformation leading to river response is caused by many processes. Doming or subsidence of
a region can result from large-scale isostatic rebound, intrusion of salt domes, differential
compaction, solution subsurface ground-water and petroleum extraction, fault movement in the
subsurface, and pluton intrusion. Deformation of the bedrock floor of a valley is indicated by
bedrock configuration and the thickness of overlying alluvium. For example, Kowalski and
Radzikoska (1968) note that alluvium will be thickest over down-faulted blocks (graben) and
thinnest over areas of uplift, as expected.
In spite of the practical significance of understanding active tectonics, relatively few
investigators have considered its effects on alluvial rivers and how these effects can be used to
interpret tectonic activity. It is not surprising that little attention has been given to the effects of
tectonics on alluvial rivers because variations of channel characteristics can also be attributed to
downstream variations in discharge, sediment load, and the type of sediment moved through the
channel or to local geology. Nevertheless, drainage anomalies that may be due to active tectonics
have been identified and striking examples involve lateral offset of streams along the San Andreas
fault. The large variety of types and rates of surficial movements and the difference among alluvial
rivers add a further complication.
-1-
國立彰化師範大學九十三學年度博士班招生考試試題
系所：地理學系
科目：地理學論著評讀
☆☆請在答案紙上作答☆☆
第 2 頁，共 3 頁
三、In this new world of cultural fluidity, it is the affectively charged realm of the popular that drives
and is driven by formative encounters with national (and nationalistic) identities and cultural
significations. However, and though pivotal to mainstream curriculum and educational discourses
and policies such as multiculturalism, we believe that “culture” remains significantly
undertheorized. “It” is often treated as a preexistent, unchanging deposit, consisting of a rigidly
bounded set of elite or folkloric knowledges, values, experiences, and linguistic practices specific
to particular groups. Also, the current cultural studies approach to culture as the production and
circulation of meaning in stratified contexts remains inadequate. Instead, we need to think about
culture along the lines suggested by Tony Bennett (1995, 1996), whereby culture is understood not
as the distinctive forms of “a whole way of life”, but rather as a set of dynamic, productive, and
generative material (and immaterial) practices that regulate social conduct and behavior, and that
emphasize personal self-management (i.e. the modification of habits, tastes, and style), political
affiliation, and trans/national identity.
請說明本文重點, 並申論其與人文地理研究的關係
四、In a review of the development of spatial and quantitative analysis in geography, Taaffe(1993)
summarized the criticisms on the nature of the findings of spatial analysis in the following
paragraphs. Please give your response to these criticisms. (Note：you may argue either for or
against these criticisms.)
The criticisms of the nature of the finding took several forms. In their attemps to build theory,
spatial analysts were criticized both for producing nothing but a “sterile geometry” and for their
failure to build up a consistent body of theory. The term “sterile geometry” was applied to studies
that were felt to be too heavily dependent on spatial regularities and aggregate data. The failure to
come to grips with the underlying behavior associated with the spatial analysis of data was also
criticized. As Rushton notes, there is a close tie between the understanding of behavior and the
development of good theory in the social sciences. Spatial complexity is not, as he says, reducible
to mere distance and direction. Although there had been many attempts to consider questions of
greater theoretical import during the first 10 or more years of work in spatial analysis, the modest
gains in conceptual structure did not constitute a consensus body of theory despite the increased
statistical and mathematical sophistication.
The nature of the spatial analysts’ findings also was criticized for an overemphasis of trivial
questions of little practical or policy import to society. It was felt that the quantitative tractability
of some simple spatial patterns made them irresistible to spatial analysis regardless of their
policy-related significance. Central place theory and the gravity model were often used as
examples. Critics felt that, in these and other instances, spatial analysis was proceeding with little
concern for the societal implications of the work. If you could develop a set of equations to
describe the pattern, that, indeed, was theory enough, and policy relevance was someone else’s
business.
-2-
國立彰化師範大學九十三學年度博士班招生考試試題
系所：地理學系
科目：地理學論著評讀
☆☆請在答案紙上作答☆☆
第 3 頁，共 3 頁
五、Read the following paragraphs and give your comments.
In their research population geographers have not accorded fertility as much attention as
migration or mortality. In modern societies, after all, births are not as spatially significant as
migration in effecting population change. Mortality might be considered more interesting
geographically than fertility because a variety of physical and cultural factors underline the map of
deaths, whereas sociocultural factors alone relate to the pattern of births. Nonetheless, a complete
understanding of population change as well as of the worldwide population-resources crisis demands
knowledge of fertility, its geographic variations, and the factors that lead to high birth rates in some
places and low birth rates in others. To risk sounding trite, without fertility there would be no
migration and no mortality.
A fundamental distinction must be made between fecundity and fertility. Fecundity refers to the
physiological capacity to bear children. It is sometimes called “reproductive capacity,” and can be
measured as the maximum number of offspring a population might possibly produce. In contrast,
fertility refers to the actual number of live births, and is sometimes called “natality.” For brief periods,
at least, animal populations are often fecund, producing as many baby rabbits, for example, as
physiologically possible. Because of incest taboos, the customary sanctioning of childbearing only in
marriage, birth control, and abortion, the human population’s actual fertility differs radically from its
fecundity. Throughout her lifetime a healthy female might possibly experience fifteen live births, yet
even in primitive societies, few ever deliver more than nine offspring.
Births can be encouraged or suppressed by a family, a society, an ethnic or religious group, a
political state, or the state of the economy. Because it is subject to substantial short-term fluctuations,
fertility has been studied extensive by sociologist, anthropologist, psychologist, and public health
researchers. The ability to control the birth rate is a question not only of contraceptive technology but
also of knowledge and attitudes. Less-developed nations can have smaller families, but their people
first have to perceive a net improvement in the quality of life as a direct result of birth control. The
communications geographer, interested in the flow and diffusion of information, may thus have as
much to contribute to the study of fertility as the geographic demographer.
-3-